Of Bears, Werewolves and Apple Crumble!

I'm SO should be doing my 3,000 word essay (almost 60% done) for my Conventional Warfare Studies paper due this Friday but there are more important things in life...like giving an update on last Friday first ever Cousins Monthly Gathering (CMG) to be held at someone's home!!!

Unlike our normal outings, we decided to gather at Rina's house last Friday for the CMG...It was to be an adults only event...no kids allowed...so those with kids in tow had to find 'creative' ways to temporarily 'dispose' of the young 'uns! This is where a healthy, harmonious and happy relationship with one's parents and parents-in-law comes in useful!

It was at about 2000hrs that the first batch of cuzzies reached Faurin's homely home (oh...most couples try cute combinations with their names...some work well like Fauzi + Rina = Faurin, Farah + Shafiq = Farafiq...even Azhar + Wan = Azwan sounds nice even if I don't actually see them using it...so would Anwar + Naziah = Annaz...but some shouldn't even try...like Boboy + Yati = Boti or worse...Boya!!!) Anyway, my BH and me fetched Boya and Annaz and the 6 of us reached Faurin's place with our contributions. I had earlier called for pizzas from Pizza Hut (4 boxes), Boya bought otak2 (I wonder how it got its name?!?) and Annaz + Farafiq brought bee hoon goreng and popcorn. Farafiq was supposed to come but unfortunately couldn't find a creative enough solution for their son! (Read: didn't manage to convince their parents/parents-in-law to look after their 'oh-so-chubby-I-wanna-pinch-his-cheeks' son). Having not had dinner...and lunch, I proceeded to give the spread of food a once over and then some...Adil and Lin (hmmm...what's her full name?) came a while later and brought some cookies (I had milk with these later on!). By then, we were already watching "Tenacious D" which I had gotten from *ahem* reliable sources...

I was the self-appointed GameMaster for the night and had prepared some games which I had thoroughly researched from the internet and also tested out during our last picnic during CNY (THAT is another story in itself!). We had also bought some party games from Toys R Us the previous week namely Party Scrabble and Pictionary Mania and were raring to try them out...It was already about 2200hrs but Lynn & Glen (whom we all lovingly call 'Usop') arrived a bit later with their chocolate fountain, marshmallow and apple crumble! They had like 3 big bags full of their stuff!!! Oh...of course not forgetting the drinks, ice-cream and Relaxed Chicken (ayam lepak) that the hosts prepared...Tanti came later as she had to give tuition in Sengkang! Way to go Tanti, no matter how late...no matter how far, she was there to be with us! (Hint, hint...;) So the 13 of us dutifully indulged in a night of fun, food and fantastic games!

Oh the games...well, we started at...get this...2330hrs! That's 11.30pm for you folks who have difficulty reading 24 hours time and need to do conversion! When normal human beings are starting to turn in, we started our games!!! A few other games were brought along by the rest...I saw Cluedo, Monopoly and Twister...In any case, we played Pictionary Mania first. For those who have played the 'normal' Pictionary, this is like 6 times better (as there are 6 different categories or types of play)!!! It was guys against gals and thru a sheer stroke of luck (as the planets were fully aligned with the moon) and because we let the gals have it their way so as not to discourage them from playing these games in the future, WE LET THE GALS WIN ;) We played 1 round and then we started another game...This was variously known as Assassin, The Murder, etc...but it essentially calls for people to find out who the 'murderer' that keeps 'murdering' people is. The group sits in circle and cards are passed around. Getting the card that is designated as the murder card would mean that the person is the murderer. All he/she has to do is to wink and 5 secs later, the 'winkee' (as opposed to the winker) falls to the ground dead! The rest tries to spot the winking in progress and votes the guy out...It was supposed to be a fun game but there was one thing that we had wrongly assumed...THAT EVERYONE CAN WINK! A wink is different from a blink...Blinking rapidly is NOT winking...Only those who were there knew who that person is! Hint: She moulds the future of our nation!!!

So we moved on to the next game. It was simply called 'The Bear' game! This was a game I saw a group of instructors from Hotel Wing (I was from Charlie Wing OCS and my sister company or wing is Hotel Wing) playing in Starbucks in an unnamed country after our end-of-frame dinner last year. I had always wanted to try it out with the cuzzies and had asked one of the ex-instructors to explain to me the intricacies of the game. So there and then, at 30 minutes after midnight (!), he was explaining to me about the Bears, Guru, Healers and Humans! As I understand from him, this game is the current rage in OCS. It's good as a time-filler. This game has the 3Cs in it! You try to CONVINCE people who you are, if not you CONFUSE them...if all else fails, you CON them! It was quite addictive and we played till 0400hrs!!! I had only 1 hour sleep the previous day...plus a short 2 hour nap in the evening after I had gotten back from work so all-in-all I had like 3 hours sleep in 48 hours!!! Anyway, Boboy and me decided to sent Tanti, Yati and Lin back home...I was zonked out and told Tanti to drive back to her place. Then, fighting the Z monster, we sent Yati and then Lin back to Tampines...then it was back to Rina's house to fetch my BH. We sent Boboy back and crawled into bed at exactly 0600hrs in the morning!!! It was tiring but fun, fun, fun...we'd do it again in a heartbeat...April is coming...Palm Gardens anyone!?!? This time we will start the games early!

(For a description of "The Bear Game" in its entirety, look at the post below. Thanx to LTA(NS)Faizal for your initial input and follow-up comments!)

The Bear Game

Objective of the game
The objective of the game is to kill/vote off the other Species. This game is about convincing, confusing and ‘conning’ people!

Species
There are two species: Humans and Bears.
• Humans
o Guru
 Knows at least 1 bear

o Healer
 Knows that only he is the healer
 Ability to heal anyone including himself during the sleep session

o Normal humans
 The default species

• Bears
o Can kill humans

Narrator
• The Narrator is neither Human or Bear and is neutral
• Acts as the game-master
• Controls the flow of the game

Game Sessions
There are 3 sessions to the game
• The Choosing Session
• The Voting Session (Day)
• The Sleep Session (Night)

The Choosing Session
This is where the Narrator chooses the Bears, Guru and Healer. This Session is only held in the beginning of the game. There should not be any conversation during this part of the game.
• All players sit in a circle
• Narrator tells everyone to ‘sleep’ (close their eyes)
• He chooses the players by tapping them in the following order:-

o Bears
 Once tapped, Narrator tells the Bears to open their eyes.
 Once the Bears have identified each other, Narrator tells them to close their eyes.

o Guru
 Next, the Narrator tells the Guru to open his eyes.
 Then the Narrator points out at least one Bear to the Guru.
 Then the Narrator tells the Guru to close his eyes.

o Healer
 Lastly, the Narrator tells the Healer to open his eyes.
 Then the Healer is told to close his eyes.

• Once all this has been carried out, Narrator then tells everyone to open their eyes.

The 1st Voting Session
This is the session where there is conversation and voting is carried out. The objective of this session is for the entire group to vote someone off.
• Once everyone has opened their eyes, the process of voting off someone starts.
• Once someone has been voted off, the Narrator instructs the group to go to ‘sleep’ (close their eyes)

• Questions
o Is the person who is voted off still in play? Does he open his eyes and just observe?
 The person voted off will not play anymore and he become the ghost and observes the rest of the games. He will not be allowed to talk and share his points during the game anymore.

o Who starts talking first?
 Anyone. Usually the bear will either try to stir shit or keep quiet or keep a look out for the guru. The guru may speak first and tell everyone who is the bear, however he will be in danger during the sleep. However if the guru can convince others that he is the real guru, the healer can try to heal him during the sleep.

o How long should this session last?
 It depends. When the game seems to be going nowhere, the narrator will start pointing and people and ask everyone to vote once. Point those whose name is being mention during the voting.

o And how is the voting off decided? By majority?
 Yes whoever has the most number of votes will be taken out.

o Does everyone talk in turn or all at the same time?
 All at the same time. But let’s say everyone try to kill off Ali, the narrator should let Ali say his final words. This may change everyone mind.

o What’s the role of the Narrator in this Session? Does he play an active role or he just observes?
 He is the neutral guy in the game. He just observes but when the game drags too long during the votes, he will step in. See 3rd point above.

The Sleep Session
This is where the bears get to kill off a human being.
• Once everyone has gone to sleep, the Narrator tells the Bears to open their eyes.
• The Bears then decide who they want to kill. They point out the person they have decided to kill off to the Narrator by pointing out the person. There should not be any conversation so as not to give away their identities. All communications is by hand-signals.
• The Bears may choose not to kill off anyone.
• Once the Bears have decided who they want to kill, the Narrator tells them to sleep.
• Next, the Narrator tells the Healer to open his eyes.
• The Healer then proceeds to heal someone including himself. The healer can only heal one person. So he may try to heal himself all the times if he wants so as to stay in the game longer.
• Even when the healer was voted off during the day, the narrator will still say “Healer wake up, healer choose who to heal and healer sleep.” This is done so that no one will know that the healer has been voted off. The actual healer who has been killed will just observe.
• Once he has done this, he closes his eyes.

The 2nd Voting Session
• The Narrator tells everyone to open their eyes.
• If the Healer managed to ‘heal’ the person that the Bears have decided to kill or if the Bears have decided not to kill anyone during the Sleep Session, the Narrator reports that no one has been killed.
• If the Healer did not manage to heal the correct person, the person who the Bears have killed the previous round will be told that he has been killed. This person is then out of the game.
• The game then continues with the voting off of the next person. Play then continues as explained earlier.

Status Report
The Narrator gives a Status Report to everyone during the 3rd round.
• This happens after the 3rd sleep, once everyone wakes up
• Thereafter the Status Report is carried out after the 6th, 9th and so on.

End of Play
• Humans win if all the Bears have been voted off.
• Usually we need at least 2 humans to kill off the bear, therefore once only 1 human remains, the bear will automatically win.

Strategy
• Bears
o Bears may choose not to kill off any humans in the Sleep Session
 This can be effective if he knows that he managed to kill the actual healer, then he can tell everyone that he is the healer. During the sleep, the bear will not kill anyone. Therefore no one dies this time, so he will convince everyone that he is the healer and that he managed to heal himself because the bear try to kill him. Once he managed to convince everyone that he is the healer, the bear will be the wolf in sheep clothing. He can happily acts as a fake healer and kill off more humans.
o If the Guru points out that he is the bear, he can also push back the blame to guru and say he is the actual guru and the real guru is the bear.

• Guru
o The Guru may not want to reveal himself too early in the game
o The Guru is like the trump card of the humans
o Because he knows at least one Bear, his job is to observe for signs of the other Bears
o He does this by observing how other players vote
o Because Bears tend to support each other (but may not always be the case if the Bears want to throw players’ suspicions off) during voting off so as to kill off as many Humans as possible, this may be something to look out for

• Healer
o Just keep quiet first. Can try to heal himself first for the first round and observes. However, if everyone tries to vote for him during the voting, he will have to tell everyone that he is the healer.

• Humans
o These players don’t know any better and may just vote other players off randomly
o As a guide, a Human does not want to vote off another Human.
o Those smarter humans will be able to guess who the bear is.

Things to note
• General
o There must not be talking during the Sleep Sessions.

• Narrator
o When first choosing the players, it is important that the players chosen know their roles. The best way is to maintain eye contact with the chosen players.
o During the Sleep Sessions, it is important for the Narrator to keep asking the Healer to heal, even if the healer has been killed! The Healer, if he is already dead, does not have to do anything. The healing has no effect at all if the healer is dead. This is more to give the illusion that the Healer is still alive and to keep the rest guessing!

Questions & Queries
• Out of all the sessions we played yesterday, 6 or 7 rounds I think, the Humans only won once (the last game)!!! Is this common?
o Meaning the bears are very smart. You can try telling the guru 2 out of the 3 bear if you want. But when this happen, the bear will be in danger. Or you can tell the guru (if he is still alive, by tapping his shoulder) the 2nd bear during the 3rd sleep.

• There was a tendency for all not to talk during the Voting Session. How to get people to talk?
o You can try pointing at someone and ask “anyone think he is the bear” Then maybe they will start talking.

• What are the other strategies for Humans and Bears?
o The best strategy for the humans is to observe and find the bear. Try killing off suspicious character first. Bear can try to convince everyone that he is the guru or healer.

• Can the players who are voted off or killed reveal themselves?
o Once you are dead, you will be the ghost. So just observe the game. You cannot vote anymore. You will be pissed when you actually realized who the real bear is.

The Final Inspection

This poem was composed by my good friend from the Indian Army who has seen action in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Final Inspection

The soldier stood and faced God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.

"Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"

The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't.
Because those of us who carry guns,
Can't always be a saint.

I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny,
That wasn't mine to keep...
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.
And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.

If you've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand.

There was a silence all around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.

"Step forward now, you soldier,
You've borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."

(With permission from MAJ Harsh V Singh)